


Post Script

by Siobhan_Schuyler



Category: White Collar
Genre: Community: whitecollar100, Gen, M/M, Triple Drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-17
Updated: 2012-07-17
Packaged: 2017-11-10 03:35:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/461771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siobhan_Schuyler/pseuds/Siobhan_Schuyler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He starts expecting it early in the month, but the card only ever shows up on the day of his birthday - never earlier, never later. Peter isn't sure how Neal does it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Post Script

**Author's Note:**

> A triple drabble for [whitecollar100](http://whitecollar100.livejournal.com)'s prompt #107, "month".

He starts expecting it early in the month, but the card only ever shows up on the day of his birthday - never earlier, never later. Peter isn't sure how Neal does it.

It's always Elizabeth who takes the mail in when she gets home from work, dropping the stack on the kitchen island. The stack is thicker this month, and almost every day there is at least one or two colorful envelope, stamped with a Hallmark crest and a handwritten address. They come from the usual suspects: his parents, his in-laws, his sister, his roommate from Quantico, an old aunt who can't remember it's not 1946 anymore but never forgets her nephew's birthday.

But this year, one particular card is missing, conspicuous in its absence. On the actual day of his birthday, Peter looks through the envelopes twice but doesn't see any with the Sing-Sing stamp and addressed in Neal's spindly handwriting. He looks every day after that, too, in case the USPS happens to be swamped and needs a few more days to deliver Neal's well wishes and the little drawing of something mundane (an apple, a cassette tape, a perfect reproduction of a sketched Da Vinci horse) that usually accompanies them.

Eventually the month rolls over into the next and Peter makes himself stop looking. Neal must've forgotten - or just lost interest, plain and simple. His fascination with Peter was a little weird anyway. Right?

So Peter stops looking and focuses instead on catching the Dutchman, whose latest clue leads Peter and his team to a bank vault in Midtown. That day, Peter doesn't think about the missing card. That day, he doesn't check the mail on his way home because that day, Neal Caffrey escapes.

The following year he gets not one but two birthday cards. Hand-delivered.


End file.
